


Chosen Family

by eowyn_of_rohan



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Christmas fic, Friendship, Gen, Multi-year series, PTSD, Post-Episode: s02e10 Noel, Post-Series, Post-canon character death, Pre-Series, canonical violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-19 05:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5955318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eowyn_of_rohan/pseuds/eowyn_of_rohan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam.  Josh.  Six Christmases, throughout the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1976

**Author's Note:**

> Despite being Jewish I have a serious love of writing things set during Christmas. (As does Aaron Sorkin, judging by the brilliance of "In Excelsis Deo" "Noel" and "Bartlet For America".)
> 
> While canon suggests, but certainly does not define, the origins of Josh and Sam’s friendship (namely that they meet as staffers on the Hill in the eighties), this story has them meeting far earlier than that.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I’m not looking to be your big brother."

Deerfield Academy is (as George Seaborn repeatedly tells his only son) one of the best boarding schools in the United States. It’s a privilege to attend that institution, not a punishment. However, Sam is reminded prior to his departure from California that he could stand to toughen up a bit, and attending school 3,000 miles from home is an excellent way to build character.

The school itself is located on a bucolic patch of land in Westchester County, half an hour north of Manhattan. Most students enroll in the fifth grade and continue their studies at Deerfield until graduating high school; for Sam to transfer to Deerfield at the start of the seventh grade automatically makes him an outsider, as does being from Southern California. The student body is almost exclusively from the Northeast -- and almost exclusively old money. Sam is one of the few students who is not a legacy admission. His roommate is fourth-generation Deerfield, and never passes up an opportunity to remind people of that; his class counts among their members descendants of Cornelius Vanderbilt, John Adams, and Henry Cabot Lodge.

The first days at Deerfield are mostly a blur, but years later Sam will recall with perfect clarity when the head of the dormitory gathered his charges together to introduce the Student Administrator. Josh Lyman is two heads taller than Sam, and five years older. He’s a senior. He’s not a legacy admission. He’s not old money. He has little time for his S.A. charges, viewing them as a nuisance and a waste of his time.

Sam’s initial interaction with him transpires during a late-night fire drill at the start of the fall semester when, half-asleep, he trips on the stairs and plows into Josh’s back. Josh looks at Sam like he’s a particularly irritating insect and snaps, “Watch where the fuck you’re going.”

Suitably intimidated, Sam resolves to stay out of his S.A.’s path for the rest of the year.

***********************************************************************************************************************

The bullying does not take Sam by surprise. He is the new kid, the know-it-all, the teacher’s pet; he is easy pickings. It starts as stupid pranks like the other kids stealing his towel from the communal bathroom, forcing Sam to streak back to his room. It’s nothing brutal, not at first, and Sam can handle it better than one might have expected. (Better than his father would have expected, at any rate.) Disappointed that their target isn’t wilting under their assault, Sam’s tormentors step up their game.

He gets his first black eye on a rainy morning in early October, and his first split lip three hours later. Six hours after that, Josh knocks on the door of his room.

“What happened to your face?”

Sam stares at him, wondering when Josh started giving a fuck about any of the seventh-graders in his midst. “I tripped,”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m kind of uncoordinated. I’m the one who fell on top of you during the fire drill.”

“Right. How did you trip?” Sam hasn’t thought his lie all the way through, and his lack of answer confirms Josh’s suspicion. “Look, you know I’m the S.A. and you can come to me if someone’s giving you crap.”

“Nobody’s giving me any crap.” If the bullying is this bad already, Sam expects it will be that much worse if he tattles on his assailants.

Josh hesitates for a split second, then shrugs. “Okay. See you around.”

“Yeah.” Sam watches his retreat down the corridor before closing the door.

Two weeks later, when he ends up with a bruised cheekbone after being shoved into a row of lockers, Josh corners him in the library. “You tripped again?”

“Something like that,” Sam mutters.

Josh regards him sidelong for several moments. “Who’s the ringleader?”

“I think it could make it worse if--”

“Trust me, I’ll take care of it. Just tell me who’s leading the pack.”

Sam gives him the name.

Josh takes care of it.

***********************************************************************************************************************

They don’t become friends after that -- not exactly. It would be strange for a senior to hang out with a middle schooler, and Josh doesn’t have much time for _anybody_ between his classes, the debate team, and being president of the student government. Still, he deigns to acknowledge Sam’s presence in the dorm hallway or the communal kitchen. He spares him a few quarters for the vending machines so Sam can load up on candy while studying for midterms. Josh learns Sam is a political junkie when he finds the kid watching late-breaking midterm election results on the news after everyone else goes to bed; the next day he starts giving Sam his copy of the _New York Times_ when he’s through with it.

Josh is endlessly amused by Sam’s conviction that his S.A. is the coolest senior at Deerfield. He doesn’t mind a little hero worship, and if it makes the kid’s transition to boarding school easier to have someone to look up to then he’s fine with that. In reality, Josh is a gawky nerd who has yet to get past first base with any of his would-be girlfriends; to Sam, he’s larger than life.

December 23 marks the end of the semester; two days before Christmas the student body packs up and leaves for their hometowns, or for glamorous vacations abroad. Mrs. Lyman drives from nearby Connecticut to pick her son up the next day and Josh is headed out of the dorm, duffel bag slung over his shoulder, when he spots Sam on the couch in the TV room with a dog-eared copy of _The Hobbit_. “What are you still doing here?” he asks. “It’s noon on Christmas Eve. When’s your flight?”

“No flight.”

Josh frowns. “What do you mean no flight?”

“You heard me, Josh.”

“You’re not going home for the holiday?”

“Obviously not.”

“Sam--”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sam snaps.

He should have known that wouldn’t deter Josh. The older boy looms over him, concern etched on his face. “Your parents don’t want you around?”

The question hits Sam like a slap in the face. No, they don’t want him around. He’s known that for the entirety of his young life, yet hearing it articulated so casually -- by someone he admires, no less -- is devastating. He doesn’t answer Josh, not with words. Instead he runs back to his room and slams the door. From his window he watches Josh get into his mother’s car.

He’s not technically alone for the holiday. There are a handful of faculty members on the grounds, several of whom go out of their way to tell Sam they can’t remember the last time a student has stayed over holiday break -- in case he isn’t already feeling awful enough about the whole affair. He calls home to California at noon and goes through the lukewarm pleasantries of wishing his parents a Merry Christmas. He dutifully thanks them for the gifts they sent the week before: a new scarf, two books, and a perfunctory greeting card. Not for the first time, Sam wonders why they had a child in the first place. And, not for the first time, he finds himself wishing they had chosen not to.

When the knock lands at his door close to dinnertime, Sam debates not answering it. The last thing he wants is a teacher with no family of his own stopping by with a can of soup and the expectation Sam will want to dine together. He nearly falls over from shock when he finds Josh is the one paying him a visit, dressed in jeans and a down jacket rather than in the Deerfield uniform, and dangling a pair of car keys between thumb and forefinger.

“You hungry?” he asks, as if it’s perfectly normal for him to show up like this.

“What?”

“Are. You. Hungry?”

“Yes?”

Josh grins at Sam’s confusion. “There’s a 24-hour diner one town over. Want to get out of here for an hour or two?”

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating with your family?”

Josh laughs and grabs Sam’s coat, tossing it at Sam before making his way down the hall and trusting the younger boy will follow. “I’m Jewish,” he explains when Sam catches up with him in the stairwell.

“Oh.”

“I’m also starving.”

They both get cheeseburgers and Cokes at dinner, and Josh does almost all of the talking. Sam leans back in the booth and listens to Josh speak about baseball and foreign policy and his crush on Peggy Lipton. Josh slips the fact that he’s just been accepted to Harvard into conversation so casually that Sam has to admire the way he makes it sound inevitable, like everyone should expect that Josh Lyman will conquer the world and Harvard is the natural first step in that quest. When Sam is able to get a word in edgewise he talks with great enthusiasm about the prospect of a snowstorm forecasted for the next day.

“I’ve never seen snow before,” he tells Josh, his eyes wide with excitement.

“Never? Not even in pictures?” Josh teases.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.” Sam finishes his Coke and regards Josh carefully. “So why’d you do this?”

“Do what?” Josh shifts awkwardly in the booth, uncomfortable with Sam’s scrutiny.

“You know what I mean. Why’d you take me out for Christmas dinner?”

“It’s not like I had anything better to do.” Sam knows Josh just well enough to recognize that the flippant remark shouldn’t be taken at face value. “Besides, my parents are always trying to get me to do charity work.”

“Not funny,” Sam grumbles.

“See? I try to be nice for once in my life and I get the third degree.” Josh slumps back against the wall of the booth. “Your parents are stupid jerks, Sam.”

“Yeah, and not even stupid jerks want me for a kid. What does that say about me?”

“Whoa,” Josh says, holding up a hand as if he can physically push back against Sam’s depression. “That says something about _them_ , not you. There’s nothing wrong with _you_. You're a pretty cool kid, okay? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re one of the few people at this school I can stand, and I don’t usually go around hanging out with 12-year-olds.”

“That would be weird,” Sam agrees.

“I just wanted to get you out of that dorm for a few hours, okay? That’s all. I’m not looking to be your big brother. In fact, I’d prefer it if you don’t tell anyone about this because it is a little…”

“Weird?” he says again.

“Yeah.”

“It’ll be our secret," Sam whispers.

Josh shakes his head. “Christ, don’t say it like _that_. That sounds even worse!”

Sam starts giggling and Josh is unable to stop himself from joining in, and they sit there laughing like idiots in a near-empty diner on a cold Christmas night.

The snow comes early, with flurries starting on the drive back to Deerfield along the Saw Mill River Parkway, and Josh allows Sam to roll down the window on the passenger side so he can try to catch a few flakes in his hand. “It’s a Christmas miracle!” Josh exclaims, his voice heavily laced with sarcasm.

“It is,” Sam insists.

When they arrives at the dorm Josh leaves the motor running, and Sam hops out with a wide smile on his face. “I’ll see you after New Year?”

“Yeah.” Josh grins at him. “Merry Christmas, kid.”

At the last second Sam remembers that Josh doesn’t celebrate and stops himself from saying, ‘Merry Christmas to you, too.’ That’s not what he wants to say, anyway.

“Thank you,” he says finally

“Don’t mention it.”

Sam laughs. “Don’t worry, Josh. I won’t.”


	2. 1986

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whatever hero worship Sam felt towards Josh ten years ago is obliterated in an instant.

There are 535 members of Congress, each with more than a dozen staffers working in their office, so it’s only natural that Sam and Josh don’t cross paths right away when they both start working on the Hill within weeks of one another. When they do meet again it’s at a bar several miles away from Capitol Hill -- and Josh is drunk.

It’s been a long day and all Sam wants is to have a few beers and maybe meet a cute girl. He wants to relax, something that’s impossible when a screaming match erupts at a corner table; Sam can’t help laughing, however, upon realizing the fight consists of a woman dressing down her boyfriend for his ultra-liberal position on affirmative action. From what Sam can hear the guy gives as good as he’s getting, and throws in a couple of good one-liners to deflect some of his girlfriend’s barbs. With a parting shout of “screw you!” the woman storms out.

Sam risks glancing over at the guy and nearly falls out of his chair. Josh Lyman. The recognition is instant, at least for Sam. He hasn’t heard from Josh since he graduated Deerfield nearly a decade ago (why would he?), but he’s unsurprised to find him in D.C. Josh wanted to go into politics. Josh was ambitious as hell. Of course he’d end up here. Sam’s unsure of what to do or say, and Josh doesn’t seem to have noticed him staring at all. Figuring it can’t hurt to say hello, he makes his way over to Josh’s table and sits down across from him.

“Are you Josh Lyman?”

Josh blinks several times, confused by the appearance of this offensively attractive kid who looks barely old enough to drink. “Who are you? A process server?”

“What? No! Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know. Who else starts a conversation with a stranger by asking them to confirm their name? Are you a cop? An FBI agent?”

“None of the above. I’m an aide to Senator Adams.”

“My condolences.”

“I went to Deerfield with you.”

Josh blinks again. “Not in my grade, though. What are you, like 19?”

“22. You were my S.A.”

“...Sam?”

Sam favors him with a beaming smile. “Yes!”

“Sam Seaborn?” Josh lets out a bark of laughter. “Holy fucking shit, what are you doing here?”

“Working for Senator Adams,” Sam says again, realizing Josh is more than slightly intoxicated.

“You graduated college?”

“Earlier this year. I went to Princeton.”

“Wow.” Josh draws the word out to four or five syllables.

“You’re very drunk.”

“Perhaps I am,” he tells Sam, over-enunciating each word with care.

“Is your girlfriend coming back?”

Josh snorts with laughter. “Nah, man. When Kelly gets pissed like that I usually don’t hear from her for a few days.”

“That may be for the best,” Sam comments, thinking of some of the creative and profane insults she hurled at Josh before departing. “Let’s get you a cab,” he suggests.

They’re two steps out of the bar when Josh mutters “uh-oh” and throws up all over Sam’s expensive shoes.

Whatever hero worship Sam felt towards Josh ten years ago is obliterated in an instant.

***********************************************************************************************************************

Sam is pretty sure this is a bad idea. The only reason he even knows Josh’s address is because he put him in that cab a few weeks ago, and he has no business showing up at his apartment building on Christmas Day. Sure, Josh tracked him down at his Senate office two days after making an ass out of himself at that bar and took Sam out for a quick coffee, but that was just two guys catching up after losing touch for a decade -- and it’s not as if they were even friends ten years ago. This is a bad idea. This is a very, very bad idea. With his luck, Josh won’t be at home to begin with.

Josh buzzes him in without hesitation, and Sam walks up two flights to a cramped studio apartment overflowing with books, wrinkled clothes, and Mets paraphernalia. He fights a smile as he remembers how Josh’s dorm room at Deerfield looked similarly chaotic to the scene before him now. “You know,” he begins, “they have these wonderful inventions called vacuum cleaners. You might want to look into that.”

“Thanks for the tip.” Josh doesn’t ask why Sam is here. He just takes his coat and hands him a beer before settling back down on the couch to watch football.

“So,” Sam says eventually, “where’s your girlfriend?”

“In Boston with her very Catholic parents who don’t approve of me.”

“Ah.”

“Speaking of parents…”

Sam bristles. “What?”

“Why aren’t you in California?”

“No reason to be. My parents are in France for the holiday.”

“Okay, so why aren’t you in France?”

“I don’t speak French.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“I didn’t come here for a therapy session,” he snaps.

“Just making conversation,” Josh mutters.

“Find another topic, then.”

“Why’d you show up at my door? How’s that for a topic change?”

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. Why’d you show up at _mine_ the last time we spent Christmas together?”

Josh doesn’t answer. Instead, after a few more minutes of watching the game he turns to Sam and says, “you know, this is a weird way to start a friendship.”

“I’m okay with that.”

“I’m just saying -- I puke on you, then you show up on my doorstep for Christmas. Weird.”

“I know.”

“And your parents are still assholes.”

“Do you fucking understand English?” Sam asks testily. “I told you, I don’t want to talk about that! I get it, Josh. My parents are jerks and yours aren’t.”

“No, mine are just fucking crazy,” Josh replies. “Dad’s depressed and Mom has perfected the art of high anxiety.”

“Are you an only child?” He can’t remember Josh mentioning a sibling.

“Yeah, kind of,” Josh laughs humorlessly.

“What do you mean?”

“My sister died 20 years ago.” He rolls the empty bottle across the floor. “See? You don’t have the monopoly on unhappy families.”

“I guess not.” Sam hesitates. “I’m sorry about your sister. What happened?”

“Does it really fucking matter?”

“I suppose not,” Sam says gently, taken aback by the ferocity of Josh’s reply.

“How about you don’t ask me about my sister and I won’t ask about your parents?”

“I can make that deal.”

“Good.”

They sit quietly for a while; the football game ends and neither one moves to change the channel. At last, Sam declares, “I hate Christmas.”

“Well then, I’m so glad you decided to bring your holiday cheer to my home.”

“I can’t ruin a holiday you don’t celebrate,” Sam points out.

“Fair point. Why do you hate Christmas?”

“It’s not the holiday itself that I despise -- it’s all the pressure to be joyful this time of year.”

“Ah.”

“I hate it,” he says again.

Josh gets up and fetches two cold beers from the fridge, opening Sam’s before handing it to him. “If you’re looking for joy, you’ve come to the wrong place.”

Sam looks around at the chaotic apartment and the disheveled, half-drunk man beside him, and wonders if perhaps joy is overrated. For the second time in his life he finds he doesn’t need carols or a Christmas tree or a pile of gifts to find comfort on this holiday -- and he doesn’t need his parents, either. Maybe he and Josh weren’t quite friends when they shared a Christmas dinner together ten years ago, but as the minutes tick by -- spent first in companionable silence and then in easy, joking conversation -- Sam is pretty sure that they are now.


	3. 1998

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When December 25 rolled around he showed up unannounced but entirely expected at Josh’s apartment, because this was something they did every 10 or 12 years. There was really no need to make a fuss about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s canon that Josh’s grandfather survived Birkenau. If Josh was born around 1959 and had an older sibling, both of his parents would have been born prior to 1940 meaning that one of them must have endured and survived the Holocaust along with his grandfather.

There was never any love lost between Josh and Lisa. It was difficult for Sam to manage having the two people he cared about most locked in a cold war of stubborn dislike, even if Josh visited New York only rarely and Lisa almost never tagged along when Sam met up with him. It didn’t make Sam happy that Josh thought his girlfriend was a shallow, celebrity-obsessed poseur when she was actually whip-smart, funny, and Sam’s unflagging cheerleader as he jumped up through the ranks at Dewey Ballantine and Gage Whitney. He also hated that Lisa thought his best friend was nothing more than an egotistical asshole with a massive superiority complex, and was unable to see the loyalty, brilliance, and flashes of sweetness that Josh possessed. It was that war of attrition that led Sam to decide against calling Josh immediately after Lisa accepted his marriage proposal; when Josh showed up a week later in New York to try to recruit him for John Hoynes’ campaign, he delivered the news with an almost apologetic smile.

Josh didn’t know which bothered him more: Sam marrying someone who was _clearly_ not good enough for him, or Sam getting engaged without picking up the phone right away to share the news.

The wedding had been tentatively scheduled for September of 1998, a year after Sam’s proposal, mainly to provide Lisa with all the time in the world to plan a large, lavish wedding. When Sam ran off with Bartlet For America, she really did try to understand it. She put on a brave smile and agreed to push back the wedding until the following spring, after the election -- after Sam returned home. When he received the offer to be Deputy Communications Director two days after the election he was stunned, and so was Lisa. She screamed at him that this wasn’t the deal they’d settled upon; he was supposed to go off and help change the world, then come back to New York after the campaign ended. She hadn’t held down the fort at their Tribeca condo for a whole year only to have him put down roots in Washington, D.C. She didn’t want to be one half of a Beltway power couple, no matter how many times he pointed out that she could write for _Vanity Fair_ and _Vogue_ from D.C. and travel to New York as needed. Five days after Sam took a job on the Senior Staff, and only eight days after Governor Bartlet was elected to the Presidency, Lisa broke up with him over the phone.

Sam didn’t know which bothered _him_ more: the end of a relationship he’d poured himself into for six years, or knowing deep down that it was his fault it turned out this way. It was easy for him to listen to Josh’s repeated assertions that Lisa wasn’t right for him after all if she’d refused to accompany him to Washington, and soon enough he began to believe that. Lisa kept the ring and they agreed to split the profits from selling the condo. There was, unfortunately, no refund on the airline tickets Sam had purchased that summer for their planned Christmas vacation in Jamaica.

When December 25 rolled around he showed up unannounced but entirely expected at Josh’s apartment, because this was something they did every 10 or 12 years. There was really no need to make a fuss about it.

***********************************************************************************************************************

Josh always asked a lot of questions. That was his thing. Sam saying that he didn’t want to discuss a given topic would work in the short term, but eventually he knew he’d be spilling his guts to his best friend. A few months after their second Christmas spent together, Sam’s barriers fell in the face of Josh’s constant needling, and he told him all about his dysfunctional family, how nothing he did ever seemed good enough yet he kept trying to win their approval all the same. Josh told him again that his parents were assholes, Sam shrugged his agreement, and that was that. The flip side was that Sam would burrow deep into Josh’s psyche, ignoring his defensive jabs when he got too close to the heart of the matter. It took a long time, but Josh told him about Joanie’s death and his own guilt. Sam is the only one outside the Lyman and McGarry families who knows that the reason Noah Lyman bonded so closely with Leo is that they would drink themselves into a stupor together to forget their respective traumas -- Leo’s father’s suicide and the horrors he saw in Vietnam, Noah’s memories of Birkenau and the gaping, festering wound of his daughter’s death. Sam is also the only one outside of the family who knows that Josh’s mother tried twice to kill herself, the second attempt ending when Josh, all of 12 years old, found her in their garage with the door closed and the engine running on the station wagon. Not even Leo knows about that.

When Sam finally met Josh’s parents he couldn’t reconcile the stoicism of Noah Lyman or the warm enthusiasm of Anna Lyman with the stories Josh told of his childhood. Then again, he found it hard to reconcile the depth of pain that Josh suppressed with his quick wit and high energy -- and that’s what worries him sometimes. Josh has spent so much time trying to be the only one in his family who’s not wracked with depression or anxiety that he refuses to admit when something’s seriously wrong. It's clear Josh is hurting after Noah’s death and the overly dramatic end to his fucked-up relationship with Mandy Hampton. Sam knows that the chance to spend the holiday with Josh is a way for both of them to find a measure of comfort. Sam’s long past being a shy, bullied seventh-grader, and Josh hasn’t appeared larger-than-life to him in ages; they’re equals now. They need and support each other in turn. They love each other -- platonically, silently, and unconditionally.

Christmas isn’t Josh’s holiday, yet he’s playing a CD of carols when Sam arrives at his apartment. There’s a catered platter of nachos and wings (how much food does Josh think they can eat in one sitting?), and he greets his best friend by giving him a small, wrapped package containing courtside tickets for the next time the Lakers visit town. This is what Josh does: he fixes things for the people he cares about. Sam only wishes that once every so often Josh would admit he needs a little fixing himself.

“You didn’t do anything for Hanukkah this year,” Sam remarks at last, after consuming far too many wings than can be good for anyone.

“Hanukkah is not the Jewish corollary to Christmas,” Josh says, exasperated. They’ve had this discussion before.

“I’m just saying, I thought maybe…”

“What, that I’d visit my mother?” He snorts derisively. “I saw her at Thanksgiving and that was more than enough one-on-one time for both of us.”

“I never asked how it was without your dad this year.”

“It was _fine_ , Sam.” Josh’s peevish tone of voice belies his assertion.

“Okay.” Sam isn’t falling for it, and they both know that.

“Do you want me to start asking about Lisa?”

“No,” he says sourly, “I don’t.”

“Because I could do that,” Josh continues. “It’d take very little effort to ask if the only reason you proposed is because it was what was expected of you after shacking up with her for a few years.”

“I loved her.” Sam is surprised by his use of the past tense. They’ve only been broken up for six weeks. Shouldn’t part of him still love her?

“You loved the idea of her.”

“I think I know my emotional state better than you.”

“You know what you really loved?” Josh is combative now, turning his defensiveness about his own family back onto Sam, and the younger man tenses as realizes what Josh’s target is before the words spill out. “You loved the notion that you could have a family with her, and that your children would know what it was like to _wanted_. You’d never ship your kids across the country to boarding school, or miss their college graduation, or have your secretary write their birthday cards. You loved the idea of making up for their mistakes. Lisa was just a convenient first step on your path to righting all those wrongs.”

Sam clenches his jaw. He thinks he might throw up those buffalo wings all over Josh’s battered leather couch.

“And to answer your question,” Josh says casually, as if he hasn’t just thrown Sam into a tailspin with his assessment, “there’s a part of me that was fucking relieved Dad isn’t there anymore. Try spending Thanksgiving with a depressed alcoholic who insists on leaving a place setting out for his daughter who died 30 years ago, like she’s Elijah at a Seder.”

“Did he always do that?”

“Every year since she died.” Sam’s stomach twists at the thought of Josh wrestling with his sister’s ghostly presence every Thanksgiving since he was seven years old. “Christ, Sam...you know I loved him…” Past tense again. “There’s just a part of me that’s glad he’s not suffering anymore.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighs. “I get that.”

***********************************************************************************************************************  
The afternoon bleeds into evening, and Sam is comfortably tipsy when Josh returns from the kitchen and sits close enough to him on the couch that their knees knock together.

“You remember how you once said you hate Christmas?” Josh asks in a conspiratorial whisper. “Well, I hate all holidays.”

“Every last one? Even Arbor Day?”

“Arbor Day is okay,” Josh allows. “And I have nothing against Kwanzaa.”

“I’m surprised you hate Election Day given what it brought us this year,” Sam remarks, glad they’re both able to smile just a little.

“I’ll grant you that. Yom Kippur isn’t so bad, actually.”

“Even though you have to fast?”

“Sam, I never fast. I’m just good at the whole atonement thing.” Josh flashes a real grin, and Sam allows himself to laugh at the bleak humor.

“You are.”

“Speaking of which, I just want to say…” Josh clears his throat.

“Oh God, do we have to get back to the high emotion of earlier?” Sam groans.

“I’m serious, Sam.” He lays his hand on Sam’s forearm and tries to find the right words. “If Lisa made you happy, if you really wanted to marry her...what I’m trying to say is, I didn’t intend for it to end up like this when I brought you onto the campaign.”

Sam exhales slowly. “She made me happy enough.”

“But?”

“But I’m exactly where I want to be, Josh.”

“In my living room getting smashed on beer and nachos?”

He slings an arm around Josh’s shoulder and is rewarded with another brilliant grin. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”


	4. 2000

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are no guarantees that he will be okay.

Sam knows he’s good on camera. He’s the administration’s go-to guy when they need a polished interview. Young, handsome, charismatic, and brilliant -- he is the total package. If he ever needed to prove his skill at holding it together on camera, he will forever be able to cite the interviews he’s giving this morning after being caught in a hail of gunfire and watching Josh ramble hysterically while strapped to a gurney and soaked in his own blood.

It’s been twelve hours since the doctors ordered him out of the room so they could operate, twelve hours since he keeled over in the men’s room and threw up in the sink, twelve hours since he stood dumbstruck in the E.R. corridor as reality set in and he could think of nothing beyond the realization that he might never see Josh alive again. It’s been nine hours since Josh’s mother refused to get on a plane to Washington because she was too hysterical to function. It’s been four hours since Sam locked himself in his office and prayed for the first time in his life.

The interviews are a godsend, forcing Sam to look at this event with a certain clinical detachment. He details Josh’s condition and recites his talking points about how grateful the administration is for the prayers of the American people. He refuses to cede any information about West Virginia White Pride or Secret Service procedure. When it’s over, C.J. corners him and Sam cracks weak one-liners about how she’s beholden to him for saving her life. He rambles about coconut oil and _I Dream of Jeannie_ , only half-aware of what’s coming out of his mouth because he’s exhausted and terrified and beginning to shut himself off from the bloody reality of the previous night. If he jokes about saving C.J.’s life, he won’t have to think too hard about how nobody was there to save Josh.

Sam doesn’t feel guilty about that. It’s not as if he was standing next to Josh and did nothing to help. He can’t outrun a speeding bullet; there was no way for him to stop Josh getting hit. He doesn’t allow himself to feel guilty about not looking for Josh, either; he was in shock about the whole thing and Charlie swore to him that Josh got in the car with Leo. So there’s no guilt, but Sam resolves to make it up to Josh somehow, somewhere down the line. The next time he needs help, Sam will be there.

The problem is that Josh doesn’t want his help. He doesn’t want anybody’s help, and he seems to disdain Sam’s assistance above everyone else’s. Sam visits him one day at home on a lunch break, shortly after Josh’s hospital discharge, and Josh snaps at him every time he offers to help out by preparing food or getting a briefing binder or helping with _anything_. “I know I’m a fucking invalid but can you let me have one ounce of self-sufficiency?” Josh barks when Sam offers to turn on the TV for him. “My remote control works, Sam, and so does my hand.” It doesn’t go much better when he tears into Ainsley Hayes on the issue of the Second Amendment or when he suggests suing the Ku Klux Klan.

One night shortly after Thanksgiving Sam wakes up alone in a dark bedroom, his heart pounding so fast he can barely breathe. He can’t remember the dream and he doesn’t want to. His hand fumbles for the phone and he punches in Josh’s number without a second thought.

“Josh Lyman.”

“Hi.”

“Sam? It’s…” There’s a pause. “It’s 3:00 in the morning.”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

Sam feels like a total moron. Josh has enough going on in his life without his best friend going mental on him. He can’t even be sure the dream was about Josh to begin with.

“I had a few new thoughts about how the President should handle the virtual classroom,” he lies.

“What?”

“I mean with the Galileo V thing next week.”

“That’s why you called me?” Josh sounds incredulous, but not in a Sam-I-know-you’re-lying way; it’s more like a Sam-I’m questioning-why-I’m-friends-with-you way.

“Yes.”

Josh hangs up on him and Sam resolves to stop worrying so much. Josh is fine. He’s _fine_.

***********************************************************************************************************************

 

It’s ten minutes after midnight when Sam leans on Josh’s buzzer. It’s a deathly cold Christmas and his extremities are numb when Josh finally lets him into the apartment. He’s wrung out and exhausted, so he can be forgiven for not immediately processing that Josh’s living room is not significantly warmer than the temperature outside. When he sees the window with a sheet tacked over it he feels much the same as he did on a muggy night in August when he ran towards the sound of Toby’s cries only to find his best friend cut down by a bullet. He feels like he’s been punched in the chest. He knew the gash on Josh’s hand wasn’t an accident, but this…

“I’m having someone come to fix it the day after tomorrow. The 26th.”

“It’s the 25th now so the 26th is tomorrow,” Sam says absently, shivering as the sheet proves no barrier against a gust of frigid air.

“What time is it?”

“After midnight, barely.”

“You waited until Christmas to show up?” Josh’s voice is bleak and bone-tired.

“I thought I’d maintain tradition.” Sam can’t tear his gaze from the window. “Jesus, Josh...what did you _do_?”

“My hand fought the window, and the window won.”

He doesn’t ask why. There is no _why_ , no reason or logic to any of this. It can’t possibly make sense any more than the blind hatred that caused the shooting.

“You can’t stay here. Come on, I’m driving you over to my place. You’ll spend the day with me.”

“It’s not my fucking holiday, Sam. I don’t need to spend it with anyone.”

“It’s _my_ holiday and you’re the person with whom I want to spend it.”

“It’s obnoxious that your grammar is perfect this late at night.”

“We’re leaving,” Sam says, and the slight crack in his voice causes Josh to flinch. “It’s not up for negotiation.”

Josh holds his gaze for a moment before giving the briefest nod. “Let me get dressed.” It’s the last thing either of them says until they reach Sam’s meticulously decorated, barely inhabited apartment. Sam offers Josh the bed, and he shakes his head no. He’s too wired on adrenaline to sleep despite having barely slept for days. He doesn’t want to lay in a dark, unfamiliar bedroom and have Sam come running when he has the inevitable nightmare. Sam understands and makes coffee for both of them; they sit in the living room with all the lights on until, after an hour of silence, Josh finally breaks.

“It’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” he says simply.

“I figured that out last week.”

“You always were the smart one.”

“When we were in the Oval Office…” Sam falters as he recalls the sight of Josh with his back turned towards him, his body drawn tight enough to break, his voice high and urgent as he yelled at President Bartlet. “It shouldn’t have taken me so long to figure it out.”

“I was pretty invested in covering up what was happening.”

Sam takes Josh’s hand in his own and stares at the palm, now neatly stitched and free of smeared blood. “The cover-up didn’t work so well with this.”

“You didn’t know about the window.”

“I knew it wasn’t an accident.”

“How?”

“The same way you knew Bobby Zane and his friends were beating me up 25 years ago.” He forces a smile and lets Josh’s hand drop. “Plus, you’ve got a lousy--”

“A lousy poker face, yeah,” Josh says, the corners of his mouth twitching up the tiniest bit.

It’s three a.m. when Josh finally succumbs to exhaustion; he refuses to take Sam’s bed and insists on the couch. He leaves all the lights on, and passes out before Sam can toss a blanket over him. Later that day Sam goes through the ritual of a perfunctory call with his parents, then hands the phone to Josh so he can dutifully check in with Donna and Leo. An inquiry into whether Josh will be disclosing the diagnosis to his mother is met with a terse no. Sam can hear the unspoken fear in Josh’s voice: that he inherited more from his mother just than her sharp tongue and unruly hair, that he inherited her depressive tendencies and her self-destructive ones too. He wants to tell Josh that he doesn’t have to worry about that, but he can’t. Sam doesn’t know how this is going to play out, and he won’t lie to Josh to make him feel better about all this. He knows that even with therapy and medication Josh will wrestle with this for a long time, perhaps even for the rest of his life. There are no guarantees that he will be okay.

After dinner Josh insists on cleaning up, then shrugs on his coat and prepares to leave. At the door he hesitates for a split second before pulling Sam into a quick, tight embrace. “Are _you_ okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Sam lies. “I’m fine.”

Josh doesn’t believe him but figures they’ll deal with that another night. “You know, what you said before about the bullies and the 25 years ago -- it got me thinking.”

“About what?”

“I told you that Christmas that I wasn’t looking to be your brother.”

“I remember.”

Josh shrugs and gives Sam a sheepish smile. “I guess I was wrong about that.”

Sam is quite sure that Josh’s circuitous declaration of brotherly love is the best Christmas gift he’s ever received. Maybe things will be okay; maybe they won’t. Whatever happens, Sam will be there for him.


End file.
